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Diction In Billy Collins Introduction To Poetry

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A poet hopes that people would appreciate their poem in a way that it is not mistreating the work’s value. In the poem “Introduction to poetry” Billy Collins describes his desires on how students should connect with poems. Collins states that students try to force out meanings out of poems instead of diving in to understand its true nature. The author creates a sensitive yet aggressive tone to convey two ways of poetry appreciation through his use of diction, personification and metaphor.
In the poem, Collins’ diction demonstrates actions that people often do when they are frustrated to show his he feels as a poet, when students do not properly analyze a poem. He uses words such as “press” or “Drop” to highlight actions he seeks from students…show more content…
The author has shown his desires in the first verses of the poem. One of his wishes being that “[Students should] walk inside the poem’s room” with this stanza he states that a way to connect with a poem is if students would take in every detail of the poem’s words and structure the way they do when they are in a friend’s house for the very first time, to look around each word. After stating his desires, Collins is more realistic when describing how students treat poems. He illustrates that “[Students] torture a confession out of [the poem]”. This demonstrates that when people misunderstand the purpose of a poem, the poem itself feels tortured by students forcing its purpose. Collins has shared his desires and the reality of a poet through the use of personification by stating how a student should connect with a poem (by walking through its rooms) and how they treat the poem…show more content…
He used the idea of ‘going into the poem’ by stating that people should press an ear against it or that they should drop themselves into the poem. The way the author describes this actions reflects the sincere and aggressive tone in the poem and ways he appreciates poems.
Throughout the poem “Introduction to poetry” Collins explains his expectations as a poet about how people can appreciate a poem in a sense that is proper. He compares his suggestions with the reality of how students appreciate poems, which he describes to be very violent. He uses devices such as diction, personification and metaphor to illustrate two ways people appreciate poetry. One way is describe as his desires while the other is the reality, which is a violent
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